How was this tooling done?

[Cat]

Someone posted these pics in another topic, and I'm not quite sure how the tooling was done. It doesn't look like the background has been pushed down, and the designs almost look like the leather was stretched over a wood carving instead of tooled into the leather. On the unfinished part, you can see the lines the maker has inscribed onto the leather, so it must have been tooled, but I just can't figure out how.

Any suggestions?
Cat

[Kilkenny]

In the other thread I expressed my opinion that this piece was done using embossing as the primary method for the tooling. The clearly raised portions on the front are raised more than is possible by simply depressing the background - they had to have been pushed up from behind.

I wager that there are marks on the backside analogous to the scribed lines on the front, indicating where to push to produce the raised areas.

The perimeters of the raised/embossed areas may or may not have been incised, and I can't say with confidence whether or not the background area was treated with a stamp or other means of compressing it - or just left alone.

I would say that the embossed areas - and others that may have been produced by more familiar tooling techniques (the Arch looks like a candidate for a conventionally tooled section) - have been burnished very effectively and very carefully.

[Cat]

Thanks for the info! I didn't read through all the posts, so I missed that part. I need to try this sometime.....

Thanks!
Cat